Navigating media and government hype as Teachers.

So....  We just had another review come out, this time on university educations.  A large number of Grads out there feel personally attacked over both it and the way it's being used in the media, feel that somehow they should be defensive about their degree and you really shouldn't be.

Many grads take this the wrong way when I say it but your degree is just not as important as you think it is and that's not actually a bad thing.  EVERYONE in education who matters to you personally knows it.   Getting your degree is a great personal achievement and no-one should be allowed to take that away from you like the media and government currently are but in the end each and every teacher has a degree.  From a professional standpoint it genuinely isn't all that special in the way many expect it to be.

There's two ways to take that. "All that study and work for 'nothing special'?!?!" is not the right one. What you get that's special is you are now allowed to be a teacher.  One of the greatest and most important professions in the world as far as I am concerned and that is special enough.

The other way to take it is "Cool, no matter what the shortcomings I'm only at the beginning of my career and I can overcome every single criticism that can be levelled at my degree".  Because you are NOT your degree, you are a teacher now, a professional.  You have grown beyond your degree from the first moment you continue to learn about being an effective educator and you will continue to do so for your entire career.

The national standards say a lot about how ongoing learning is VITAL once we exit university, university is not, and never will be, enough.  It's the core concept that no matter the shortcomings of university education, and every university education has shortcomings because there's only so much you can teach someone in a given period of time, we are always capable of learning what we need to learn and striving to be great teachers.

"The best teachers are the best learners".  This isn't about university degrees and ATAR scores as it gets used in the media, that's about the public view and has little to do with us once we step out of uni.  It's not what we need to hear as teachers, it's to sell newspaper subscriptions or get votes to remain in power.

For us it's about being part of "vibrant educational communities" and the ongoing learning that takes novice teachers fresh out of uni and makes them great.  A university degree is only our starting point, what qualifies us to seek employment as teachers, to become novices in our profession.  We continue to learn every day of our careers and that's what makes great teachers.

This isn't telling grads their degree is worthless, it's telling them that there's an all-purpose defence against arguments such as are currently going on and equipping them with the mindset to both ignore this media/government tomfoolery and continue on the road to being a great teacher. Right now is not an easy time to be entering education which makes it all the more important to aspire to greatness.  Those that do and are able to maintain their dedication, passion and enthusiasm to be great in the face of adversity are the ones who will come out of this current situation on top.

Grads, you have a wonderful journey unfolding before you.  Don't tarnish that by buying into this media/government hype.  Instead find the sources of knowledge that inspire you to become great, to adapt to and overcome the challenges that are being put in your way.

Be wary of learning the wrongs things from the media and our governments.  Focus on yourself, focus on your colleagues and focus on your students.  That is the doorway to success.

Regards,

Mel.

ClassCover online PD.

Hello everyone!

Setting Your Students Up For Success is an online course based loosely on concepts from my successful Literacy Games PD workshop for CRTs.  This one focuses more on the core concepts of hands-on learning and how to use them to engage, motivate and educate your students!

• Common reasons for disengagement from Literacy.
• The relationship between engagement and behaviour management.
• Engaging and hands-on resources to support writing skills.
• Hands on and visual learning in english language word structure.
• Hands-on and visual strategies for prompting during writing tasks

This PD is not only to help us inderstand hands-on literacy in our classrooms but also how to understand how to pick engaging and effective resources and activities for our CRT "bag of tricks".

Venue:  Online Delivery (through OpenLearning.com).
Date:  Now available and "always on"!
Host Company:  ClassCover's Relief Teacher Association.
Cost:  $20.00 (AUD)
Duration:  1.5 hours (+time spent in collegial activities)

• Approx 40 minutes of presenter delivered video.
• Approx 10 minutes of additional video from other sources.
• Approx 40 minutes of activities.

Collaboration is part of the intentions of this course and is not included in the duration!  Please remember to add the appropriate time to your submission to VIT for registration renewal.  We'd also add that the collaborative nature of these PD is an excellent way to reinforce and expand on the learning provided!

All proceeds we get from the creation of this course and ongoing payments are going directly into funding CRT Network activities (Wodonga and Shepparton).  Accessing this course is not only helping you in your classrooms, it is also supporting your CRT colleagues in regional Victoria!

Go To This Course On OpenLearning.com.

Other courses now available through ClassCover's Relief Teacher Association:

Most other other courses are $20.00 AU for an average of 1.5 hours per course, the Effective Use of Interactive Whiteboards is a free offering for you to try out the quality of these PD workshops before you buy!

Effective Use of Interactive Whiteboards 

with Susan Burke from Interactivelessons.com.au (free).

As educators, we know that technology engages students, and student engagement needs to be our top priority. Most classrooms are equipped with an interactive white board and this course will give you lots of fantastic, simple ways to use the IWB without any preparation.

Behaviour Management for Relief Teachers 
with Bob Brandis from Reliefteaching.com ($20 AUD)

Managing student behaviour in the classroom is essential for all teachers. Student behaviour is the determining factor of learning success and sometimes your teacher sanity. Misbehaviour is a toxic element in the classroom but dealing with misbehaviour incorrectly increases the toxicity.
Not only does misbehaviour add an abrasive tone to your rapport with all students it creates a destructive element for future success.
You need a repertoire of behaviour management strategies to call upon to handle the myriad of classroom situations with which you deal.
At the end of this course, Behaviour Management for Relief Teachers, you will have better options, more effective strategies and more competent skills to handle disruptive students in your classrooms.

Return to teaching and the education world 
with Anna Bennett, a highly regarded leader in the educational field ($20 AUD).

Our understanding about how students learn has greatly evolved even in the last 10 years. The major shift is from more about the learning and less about the teaching. We no longer ask ourselves what are we going to teach but more what are the students going to learn and how best can we achieve this. 

This course will develop a greater understanding about;
1.    The need for greater clarity around the learning
2.    The power of formative assessment in the learning process
3.    The need to differentiate and personalise the learning 

 
Autism Awareness Pt 1 
with Karina Barley who is an internationally recognised educational consultant ($20 AUD).

It is vitally important to be aware what it is like for the student who has Autism to have a Relief teacher come into their room. Students on the Spectrum prefer structure and routine and any change will cause them to feel anxious, frustrated and even angry. 

Your role as the Relief teacher is to make life more manageable, and provide strategies that will assist those students on the Autism Spectrum to negotiate the change in their day and help them to as quickly as possible to feel comfortable with you.
 
This course, designed with the Relief Teacher in mind and will help you to:

• Understand autism and why having a CRT in their classroom will cause them anxiety.
• Have some awareness of sensory issues
• To understand learning styles for clients with autism.
• Develop strategies for the classroom.

The feedback on these courses has so far been very positive!  Here's a random assortment of comments from various courses:

'Thank you. I have really enjoyed this course. Can't wait to do the next one.'

'I have sincerely enjoyed this course and cannot wait to try out the many things i have learnt today. I will no longer be nervous about what to do if i don't have enough time to prepare for a class on the previous day. '

'Thank you, very great ideas to make effective, interesting and interactive lessons.'

'Great activities that are easy to set up and fun for the students. I'll definitely be using these.'

'Fantastic yet simple ideas to use on casual days!! I have to admit I am excited to try these out'

Regards,

Mel.

The Wodonga CRT Network and ClassCover's Relief Teacher Association.

I first became involved with ClassCover about 8 months back because of mutual aims and goals we share in my role as a CRT Network Coordinator.  I am always on the hunt for sources of accessible PD for Victorian CRTs that is quality assured in some way.  While I have been explaining "what is PD" for a number of years to allow CRTs to access affordable PD for registration purposes, it has weighed heavily that this is sort of a "trap door" to escape registration woes which is not what PD is about.

PD is about accessing knowledge that allows us to become better teachers and most of the PD out there aimed directly at CRTs is on 2 topics:  Engagement and Behaviour Management.  These, of course, are incredibly important to us as CRTs forming 2 skills we need to excel at what it is we do.  When we move outside of these two areas there are few PDs out there targeted at teaching in the CRT context outside of Networks and AEU/IEU supplied offerings.

This leaves many regional CRTs out in the cold or having large travel (and possibly accommodation) costs to afford on a casual income as well.

When looking at ways to shortcut a couple of our long-term goals we ended up looking at ClassCover's Relief Teacher Association (which until recently was called "the casual teacher network").  The reasons for this is that firstly they were producing affordable, online Professional Development for CRTs.  Upon further inspection they are are dedicated to CRTs no only through their business model but through their ethics and lastly they are BOSTES accredited PD providers.  While BOSTES accreditation means little to us in an official capacity in Victoria (it's a NSW specific accreditation for NSW PD), those of you who have attended our PD opportunities in the past will know, quality experiences that are aimed at the CRT context across all curriculum areas are very important to us.

BOSTES accreditation in NSW makes sure there is a watchdog overseeing the PD quality which still benefits us enormously.  We can be confident in the quality of the PD the same way that Pdi allowed us to be confident of quality in PD in Victoria's past.

This relationship has ended up breaking our neutrality a little which is something we weren't in a hurry to do and didn't set out to do either.  It is important that we are able to provide open and honest information for all CRTs who access our services.  This made it vital that if we chose to break our absolute neutrality it had to be with a person or organization in a position to give back to CRTs, in a quality way, in return.  Not just CRTs generally but give back directly to members of the Wodonga and Shepparton CRT Support Networks.

While ClassCover itself is worth looking at now that they are operating in numerous states in Australia, ClassCover is not our focus in this relationship.  It is, and remains, the supply of PD through their Relief Teacher Association that was of interest.  Initially this was only to seek affordable and quality PD experiences for Victorian CRTs as some of our members had begun mentioning them in collegial meetings.  This has resulted in an offer from ClassCover's RTA to produce online PD workshops for them. 

This offer was made by the RTA in a genuine effort to support our Network members in a mutually beneficial way.  We have no intention of compromising our integrity as being "by CRTs, for CRTs" in any way!

As many are now aware, we have just scheduled our first PD for 2015 (The Singing Classroom in Term 2).  This is where some of the money has come from in order to provide this PD to local CRTs at the heavily subsidised price we are able to offer, we are already reaping the benefits of this arrangement.  Helping assure the success of RTAs online courses will help us to make this a sustainable income to keep providing the opportunities we have been at affordable prices into the future (while providing PD online at affordable prices no less!). 

We have not taken the decision to move away from our concrete impartiality lightly but consider that in doing so we have generated a win for us all.

Regards,

Mel.

PD Announcement: The Singing Classroom with Sue Arney.

Hello everyone,

We have just booked our first PD workshop for 2015 (Term 2);  The Singing Classroom with Sue Arney.

Wangaratta Presentation:  2013

View this video on YouTube.

"A Professional Learning program for generalist primary classroom teachers offering them support, confidence, skills and resources to sing more regularly with their students."

“Music education uniquely contributes to the emotional, physical, social and cognitive growth of all students.”

National Review of School Music Education, Australia, 2005

Imagine a school day where singing is an integral part of the program – not an add-on or an extra activity, but integrated into the existing daily program. aMuse is pleased to launch this exciting new program in 2012 aimed at providing generalist primary teachers with the skills and resources to build the confidence needed to sing regularly with their students!

“The key with meaningful music learning, is that it has to be ‘continuous, sequential and developmental’ for students to benefit. We know, for example, that as few as 23% of government schools are able to offer their students a music education which fits that bill - they would like to, but they lack the resources. In private schools, the number leaps up to 88%.”

This PD will be held in the Wodonga South Primary School Music room.  As usual it will be a catered workshop.  As this is a self-funded PD we have had to bump the price of the booking fee (sorry!) to $15 for CRTs and $40 for other teaching professionals.  Bookings will be opened first to CRTs and to other teaching professionals at a later date.

Date:  Sat 16 May 2015.
Max attendance: 40
Bookings open:  Mon 6 Apr (CRTs - other teaching professionals will open at a later date if places remain).

Full details will be released shortly before booking opens!

Melinda Lichnovsky-Klock
Wodonga CRT Support Network Coordinator.

Network Update.

Hi Everyone!

The February Meeting Page is now up.

This meeting is scheduled for Feb 18, 2015 from 4.00pm to 6.30pm.  As usual it will be held in the Wodonga South Primary School library and also catered in the usual way.

Please check the page for full details.


Blog updates - no major changes!

• We've cleaned up some old blogs that weren't being updated anymore.
• We've added 2 new YouTube channels (TeachHeath and Australian Education services).
• Removed some dead links (more to go).

Network Community Activity:

The "on demand PD" network community activity has been shelved.  More information on why this has been done at the Feb meeting (it's exciting!).


This years CRT Resource Challenge:

We have moved this up to begin in March (shortly after the March meeting) to move it to a quieter time of year due to last year's feedback.

Wishing everyone an early start to their work!

Regards,

Mel.

What's on the feed? CoolCat Teacher Blog - Making Learning Fun

An interesting arrival on my feeds this week is a post on the CoolCat teacher blog about Jeromie Heath, a teacher in Seattle (USA):

 Jeromie Heath engages students by dressing up. Some days he’s Super Mario or a Mad Scientist — other days he’s a pirate. He was even a finalist for People’ Magazine’s teacher of the year (see the video to believe his classroom — notice the standards on the wall – yes, they are still there.) He engages students by immersing them in experiences. On the show, he says, “I’m tapping into their childhood…”

Continue Reading on the CoolCat Teacher Blog!

It's not a way we are all going to teach by any means but it's certainly worth a read to see how different teachers are generating positive results in their classrooms!


Regards,

Mel.